1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a medical network system wherein various kinds of medical equipment are connected to a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Images for diagnosis have been exchanged as digital data between doctors and staff for clinical examination or radiology, through a network connecting imaging modalities such as a CT apparatus, a laser printer for outputting images, a server computer for storing and managing the images (hereinafter called an image server), and a diagnosis terminal, in order to improve efficiency in hospital operations.
Recently, in order to connect medical equipment of different manufacturers to each other, standardization of a network protocol dedicated for a medical system has been in progress. For example, the DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) standard generated by the ACR-NEMA committee (ACR: American College of Radiology, NEMA: National Electrical Manufacturers Association) is a standard for realizing an object-oriented medical network system, and defines the content of various kinds of diagnosis information such as CT image information, clinical examination information, and patient information and the data structure thereof, as well as a procedure for exchanging such diagnosis information as a message (a procedure for requesting services such as storage, acquisition, and printing of images or inquiry about images).
Even when an imaging modality, a printer, a workstation for diagnosis and the like are made by different manufacturers, in a network environment wherein all such devices have DICOM interfaces installed therein (hereinafter called a DICOM network), an application program installed in each device communicates by using the DICOM interfaces. In this manner, exchange of diagnosis information can be realized between the devices.
In the DICOM standard, data formats for information which is not indispensable in a medical system, such as patient information or clinical examination information, are defined in detail, and interfaces for requesting processing upon inquiry of various kinds of information are also defined. Therefore, the development overhead of an application program under the DICOM environment is lighter than under an environment other than the one for DICOM.
For this reason, system construction according to the DICOM standard is generally regarded as desirable for a medical network system.
However, although DICOM network aims at an open environment which is not dependent on manufacturers, it assumes that each device has a DICOM interface. Therefore, in the case where a personal computer assigned to each doctor as a terminal for referring to images is connected to a network in addition to main devices such as imaging modalities, not only the main devices but also all of the personal computers need to have the DICOM interfaces.
Furthermore, since the load of image transfer, image processing, and display processing based on the DICOM standard is heavy, problems such as slow display often occur when a low price personal computer is used as a reference terminal. In order to increase the display speed, a workstation or a personal computer with a higher performance than a conventional one can be used as a reference terminal. However, since at least tens, or hundreds in a large system, of reference terminals are needed, this idea is not preferable in terms of cost.